Just had a listen to Ian Brown’s wonderful track F.E.A.R. For those who don’t know the song, it is written around those four letters. Every line in the song, well almost every line, uses those letters to create the words, so we end up with lines like Forgive Everybody And Remember and Fantastic Expectations Amazing Revelations and so on.

Anyway, it got me thinking, which is always a bad thing, about what exactly is meaning. The song, or more accurately, those four letters mean so many different things throughout. And yet, as a whole the song has meaning – not that I want to go into song hermeneutics here.

Then we have the Bible (bet you didn’t see that coming). Many passages in the Bible are taken to mean different things by different people. As one very simple (ha) example we have the whole millennium thing; I’m not going into it here but if you want to know more have a look here.

My question is where is meaning? Is it in the single lines; the individual verses; the song as a whole; the message of the book; or something else?

I’m not asking for an answer, simply encouraging a conversation. But in closing I just want to point out that more bigotry and judgement has come from emphasising the minutiae than viewing the whole. Jesus himself would accept a summary of the minutiae quite willingly.

Ian Brown’s song isn’t called Find earth and reap, it’s called F.E.A.R.

The Bible isn’t called Psalm 68:21 or Leviticus 18:22, it’s called The Library, a collection of writings from across centuries, about how God has reached out to humanity. There is no need to rip out bits and pieces and no need to over-emphasise other bits.

You can pick up any Bible and read to begin to see what it is on about.

As for Ian Brown’s F.E.A.R. You can listen to it below, as you ponder its meaning.